My music sounds like shit and now there's math doom metal

that's right, yap, dog. yap yourself ever closer to your eventual death....

Oh, hi there! I was just looking around on MySpace for some pretty sweet bands. And I did found a few. Namely, one called Dark Castle. They're located in Florida, and are comprised of a guitarist and a drummer, both of whom sing. And it's actual singing, too.

What first surprised me was that the sound is really full, for there being just one guitar. He's got it tuned really low, and also plays in this way that's really unique. He makes sure that guitar sounds always fill the space, and if you listen to the way he plays, you'll realize it's not like the usual metal you'll hear. This is the second thing that impressed me--it's not the usual metal you hear. It's almost never in 4/4 time--it's math doom metal! Such a thing is kinda unheard of! I'm really kinda feeling the inner geek in me rise up and want to take a pocket-protected hold.

Wait, it's Nerds who have pocket protectors, right? Aren't geeks the more D&D-types, who don't shower and eat poorly?

I watched as much of Food, Inc. as Lucy could stand. It kinda... scared me. Raw food seems to be the way to go. Sounds like a major adjustment.

I digress. In the process of requesting MySpace brand friendship from Dark Castle, I thought, hm, they're not going to know who I am, so they're going to go to my page and check me out, and what are they going to hear? Well, I haven't been to my own page in a while, let's go see... oh my god, this music sounds like shit! Not poorly-played, mind you--just mixed terribly and recorded with no pre-amp. I submitted this to a community college instructor for credit.... I'm lucky he had an artistic mind. Open to new possibilities. Hah! New possibilities of suck!

Well, here's something I recorded with my new equipment. Copy and paste this into your browser:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11159875/Idea.zip

It's a short little diddy, and it sounds better than my other stuff. Still needs drums, tho. This is something that was just going thru my head randomly and I wanted to record really quick. It descends into madness shortly after it starts. The lead guitar is way off, too. OKAY!! I KNOW!! IT STILL SOUNDS LIKE SHIT!!

Napoleon Dynamite is funny

Napoleon Dynamite--a one-off. A flash in a pan. A storm in a teacup. A one-hit wonder. Never will a movie like this be made again, nor should one. It exists on its own, with no predecessors, and no successors. This Internet Movie Database page is dedicated to preserving adequately funny quotes from the movie. It must have been difficult to pick and choose from every single line. They're all memorable. No one speaks in that movie unless it's funny.

What I like most about ND is the style in which it was filmed. Not much music, not much fluff. No gratuitous violence or attempts at sexual arousal of the viewer (something I find most annoying--there's a place for that--PORN!). No cliched crap. It's all original, and it's all awesome. I own the dvd and will probably watch it again soon. A timeless piece of work.

"...you're ruining everyone's lives and eating all our steak!"

"Why don't you go eat a decroded piece of crap!"

"Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter."

"Bow to your sensei. BOW TO YOUR SENSEI!"

Pictures of Lucy

I am having a very difficult time formatting these pictures to be positioned the way I want them.

These photos were all taken October, 2010.

 

 

               

    

 

Tired--a slice of life story

Bring your hat

Life gets you tired sometimes. Last night at P&P we had a late rush. We close at midnight, and since I'm the only kitchen worker the nights I work, I need a lot of time to clean everything and wrap stuff up before I leave. So I was there like, pretty late.

I just remembered something I didn't wrap up.

Anyway, the place was suddenly full of people wanting food at around 11 p.m. Like, two 6tops and a bunch of other smaller orders. My rail went from no tickets full of tickets in about five minutes. I had to stagger the pies going in and out of the oven, and people were having to wait for their food. And that was the second rush we had! The first was a four- or five-hour-long rush that depleted most of our reserves of prepped food. But I gotta say--it's good to make money.

The late rush went pretty well, considering. None of us were prepared for it, and none of us pleased, but that's how it goes. In these situations, there's nothing you can do but work work work. I felt that I was on my A Game all last night, too. I was rocking out those plates and the food was looking good. Except I kept burning sweet potato fries... those things go from ready to eat, to burnt in like three seconds.

Lucy's waking up at 7-7:15 a.m. these days, which means I do too. After the rush last night, it took me until close to 1 a.m. to get everything done. When I got home I had to rush to brush my teeth and get in bed, which is problematic cause I was wired from work, but I also knew Lucy would be up early, so I had no choice. And I couldn't fall asleep until probably around 2.

And she's sick! Little girl is a snot factory today.

At the park a few days ago this grandmother said me that it's going to get hectic when our next kid is born. A newborn and a two-year-old--wow. What were we thinking? That thought kinda kept me up last night. I was lying there in bed, wired and unsuccessfully trying to sleep, worrying about things I don't need to worry about. Jeez.

And I think I've been fighting off a cold for three or so weeks now. It comes out when I don't get enough sleep. I've been drinking a lot of Emergen-C. And coffee. Aah! Coffee's getting cold in the kitchen! gaaah!

I love you, microwave.

There's a meeting at work today. I keep thinking about whether I'm going to address these grievances I have or keep my mouth shut. There's a right and a wrong way to say everything, and I want to make sure I say it right or not at all. Cause if you say it wrong, your cause is lost.

The main purpose of the meeting is to meet our new General Manager. This guy (I forget his name) is going to oversee both the front and back of the house. I hope me can handle it. We P&P employees can sure dish out a lot of shit.

I WILL make good on my promise

Dexter/Wire comparison slowly emerging


I'm working on it. First, I have to post a Dexter review, cause that's where my writing has taken me. Thus far. When I write the review of The Wire, it'll probably be just one word long -- awesome. I mean, there's not much else to say, except for there's so much praise I could bestow upon The Wire that it'd burn your brain. I am a The Wire slut.


In the meantime, watch this YouTube video, from Associated Press, of Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind) talk about how he wants to continue Bush-era spending. What a douchebag.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VqNh19-hY8&feature=sub

Let's talk about marijuana

I can't talk about pot because someone will tell on me. Am I in elementary school again?

One could take the stance that it's nothing short of a bad idea to document illegal activity online, on a public forum, simply for safety's sake. Or, one could take the stance that honesty is the best policy, for oneself and the world, that talking about your life is therapeutic, and that it's really stupid that marijuana is illegal.

Frankly, I'm torn.

One fact encourages me to stifle myself: I have a family now. It's time to be careful. Authorities are busting pot growers left and right--check this 2007 blog entry from Bad Guys by David E. Kaplan:
"Homegrown Pot Seizures Double."

The article gives a sense of what authorities are able to find, and what growers are able to do, given the ever increasing technological advances in pot cultivation.

Currently, the issue of marijuana use in the U.S. is focused on whether California will make pot possession legal this November. If so, it could have all sorts of implications for the U.S. and Mexico, specifically for Mexican Drug Trafficing Organizations (DTOs) that make money hand over fist smuggling it north. A blog entitled "The Great Debate," via Reuters, has recently posted a well-written entry by Bernd Debusmann about this issue. Find it here:
"California Vote and Mexican Drug Cartels."

So can I yet say on my blog that I use the drug too? Well, after all this research, I still don't have an answer, except for a wary feeling that says, "NO." My question boils down more to social norms that can affect how easily I can get a job, than law.

Trouble is never what people seek with pot, but it always seems to find them. If you want to avoid trouble and still smoke pot, you'd best be prepared to hide it. You've got to keep it in your home, keep it well hidden in your home, and not talk about it. Ridiculous!

It's not because the cops are necessarily going to hunt you down--it's that you won't be taken seriously by your peers. This can hurt your reputation, which we all know, can hurt your standing in business relationships. When you ban something, you also cast a hex on it.

But this does not happen because pot is bad. It happens because pot is illegal.

What if one tries to land a great job and the employer researches one's blog and says, "This guy cannot work for me, given his irresponsible and brazen blog entry about how he uses illegal pots."

What if one already works for a company and a higher-up hears that one smokes pot? You're fired!

Say the police catch wind (pun) of one's habit and start watching you? Jail! (Unlikely for casual smokers, but not out of the question.)

What if you get pulled over and caught with it? Jail!

So can we talk about pot? No. We can't. Something totally normal and accepted by the vast majority of people everywhere as no worse and less addictive than alcohol, or tobacco, or caffeine, or Prozac, cannot be spoken of in public forums.

The day is not yet here when people can openly admit to the public that they're a user of pot who enjoys it,  is comfortable with it, that it causes no serious problems in their life, and that they have no intention of stopping. And that's fucking bullshit.

Okay, on a more funny note, check out this link for the political Pot Party. I think whoever designed the site was really high--look how the white letters on the left column fade into the white page and become unreadable.

Parenting article for the insane parent

Borowitz delivers the ol' one-two punch at babys

I had just put Lucy to bed for her nap and walked out of the room when I saw this printed piece of paper on top of some charts we brought home from the doctor. It was an article from The New Yorker by Andy Borowitz from late last month, entitled, "The Good Enough Baby."

He makes jokes at the baby's expense, made me the (insane) parent feel better, and comprises it into a slimmed down mini-checklist of what he just wrote in his new book, the "blah blah blah This Is My New Book" book. He finishes with a word on how seriously he takes parenting. As a pediatrician.

What I liked about the article is that jokes kept appearing from out of nowhere. They kept catching me off guard, and when I did realize he was joking, the jokes were pretty damn funny. His writing is of such a high caliber the whole piece flows by in what you could call a 'quick read,' if it weren't for the density of the writing. There's no fluff. He probably just rattled it all off in like five minutes, too. He already wrote a book about it.

Read this article. It may even inspire you to buy, oh hell I'll say the name of The Book: "The Good Enough Baby: Settling for Little Miss Adequate."

Now I have to ask Megan where the heck she found it. It's fuckin hilarious!

Hot dog, grapes, doughnut chunk, OLIVE

Lucy was given green grapes and a hot dog for dinner. She gobbled up the hot dog really fast. Must have been really hungry.

So I gave her a piece of this doughnut with pink frosting she didn't finish at Top Pot about three days ago. I still have half of mine left over, too. Mm, bavarian cream. But anyway, I saw these big black pitted olives in there that Megan bought and ate almost all of and I didn't notice. I ate one and then gave one to Lucy.

Now I counted this, and she never let go of the doughnut chunk in her left hand the whole time. Seven times, after picking up the olive, she looked at it intensely and strangely, put it to her mouth, gave it a sort of lick/bite, and took it away. Never put it down until the seventh time. Then she put the doughnut piece back to her mouth. Stopped. Let out a Huge Burp. It appeared to have been brewing in there a while.

She then held up the olive and showed it to me, then showed me the doughnut piece in her other hand. Finally she started in on the doughnut piece again.

I'm guessing the olive blew her mind a little. Megan's been craving them lately in her pregnancy.

I would post a stock picture of our new car

If only pictures of cars were not always so douchey.


Go to Google images and search for Kia Soul Black. You'll see what we got, but still, when I think about it out there in front of our place, parked on the street, it looks cooler than in any of those pictures. 

Kids, Doctors, Cars

Here I lay in bed while I have a few precious moments. Megan is home on her lunch break and watching the little girl while the little girl watches The Muppet Movie. A great movie, might I add. She's crazy about it. Whenever she's scared of something, I can sing her The Rainbow Connection and she calms right down.

Like this morning in the doctor's office--she was scared of the place cause just a few days prior she received two shots for her 18 month check up. But we weren't there for her. I told her as much, but I don't think she believed me at first. Mama had to leave the room to get a urine sample, and Lucy started freaking out a little bit. So I put her on my lap and sang TRC to her and it worked like gangbusters.

You may be wondering why we were at the doctor's office this morning, no? Well, it's no use hiding it anymore. #2 is on the way. That's right. Megan's pregnant. Nine weeks and one day. I'm sick of not telling people. The doctor confirmed the pregnancy. We got the ultrasound picture. It's a little baby lump. Pretty cool.

I'm psyched. Good thing we got a new car recently. Now THAT was an experience. A big hassle for a bigger payoff. The salesman we worked with was great. Megan did everything right with her credit and the loan she took out to get us a good car with pretty low financing. My babymama the breadwinner. Aren't I lucky.

We got a Kia Soul. I should probably put a picture up her of it. ugh... .I'm too tired. I'm in bed. Later. I'm coming down with something. My throat is sore and I don't feel quite right. Great.